


and she never wanted to leave

by sansaswildlinglover



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Post-Canon, Rickon Lives, Sansa-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 11:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19062160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansaswildlinglover/pseuds/sansaswildlinglover
Summary: I USED TO BE WOLFWITHWOODENTEETHThe coming of Spring will always be bittersweet to her. The Winters are cruel, and the North and its people need a reprieve from it. They deserve to sing and dance and laugh in the sun. They can't go on without the promise Summer's bounty. But to her, it's a promise of sorrow.She wonders if the pain will ever not sting quite as sharply, but she knows she must endure.





	and she never wanted to leave

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on another post-finale fic, but this is an idea I got this morning and it wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to get it out. This is the first time in months I've finished something, so yaaaay!

_When the snows fall, and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives._

 

 

The Wolf Queen rises with the sun. The days are growing longer, she can feel it in her bones, she can smell it in the air, she knows it in her heart, but she'll ignore it for a little while longer.

The castle is already bustling, and she meets many people as she walks the halls. They all greet her with a smile and a bow, and she calls them by their names.

Her Brother Raven is in the Godswood when she arrives there. He's always there lately, even though the threat of ice has been vanquished years ago. 

Her feet crush the night's fresh layer of snow, a layer that's thinner than it has been in moons. She puts a hand on his shoulder, unworried about startling him. He already knows she's there.

"It's almost time," her warns her.

Her fingers dig into the fur of his cloak and she closes her eyes, taking a deep breath she holds in as long as she can before releasing it.

"Not quite yet," she objects.

"No," he concedes. "But soon."

She kneels, but she doesn't know what to pray for. She's aware what her selfish heart wants, but she can't bring herself to wish for it, not here. 

 _Just a little while longer,_ she chants to herself as she makes her way back to the keep.  _Another hour, another day._

In the training yard two more wolves are circling around each other, Night Wolf and Wolf Pup. Her sister has been trying to teach the youngest member of their pack the ways of the waterdancers. He easily matches her in fierceness, but his spirit is too untamed and too unbridled to be well suited for waterdancing, and they all hope he will stay that way.

She stops to watch them for a while before she goes back inside. 

 

 

She finds her Dragon Wolf in his chambers, freshly back from the yard himself, damp curls still sticking to his temples and neck. She pounces on him, kissing him hungrily and pressing her body into his until he staggers into one of the bedposts.

When she pulls back to rid herself of her dress, he huffs out a surprised laugh. "What...?" he begins to ask her. But his eyes are dark, and he licks his lips when she reveals her naked body to him. 

He growls when she rips his sweaty tunic from his chest, and then again when she rakes her nails down the muscles of his stomach, pulling him closer by the waistband of his breeches.

He's attacking her with mouth and hands, advancing until her back collides with heavy wood, and she hisses. His arms snake around her waist to lift her up, and her long legs encircle his hips. 

He takes her against the door, until she's howling for him, and he also finds his pleasure inside of her. Only then he carries her to the bed, gently laying her down on top of the furs, curling his body around hers.

His fingers walk up her thigh, over her hip, following the curve of her waist, and she shivers, hiding her face in his chest.

"Are you alright?" he murmurs into her hair, but she only buries herself deeper into him.

 

 

The white raven comes the next day, but she refuses to weep. The cold and the snows are retreating, and her people are already rejoicing. Spring is hope, is a promise, but to her it will be grief. 

She spends the days with her sister and brothers, and the nights with her mate, her lover, her King, if he wishes it.  _You could make him stay,_ she tells herself. But she promised herself she would be as free as the North, so she'll let him go, only bearing it because she knows he'll come back to her.

She ruffles Rickon's hair, hugs Bran and kisses Arya on the cheek whenever she sees them around the castle, until her siblings groan in exasperation each time they see her. She only bites her lip when she meets Jon in the halls or in the yard, hiding her flushed cheeks, and when they all share their meals, or sit together to discuss their plans, she holds his hand under the table.

At night she clings to him as they learn each other's bodies, as she urges his mouth and hands to explore every inch of her skin, as she marks him with teeth and nails, and lips and tongue. 

 

 

A snow storm sweeps through the North, and she curses her wicked heart for hoping the maesters were wrong. Perhaps this supposed changing of the seasons was nothing more than a false spring passing through.

"Don't lie to yourself," her sister tells her with a sad smile as they are gathered around the fireplace. She keeps stroking her little brother's curls, who's sleeping with his head cradled in her lap. "You're not that girl anymore."

Her other brother nods, and before the tears can spring from her eyes, a pair of strong arms is wrapped around her waist and she leans back into the comfort of her lover's embrace.

 

 

She does weep on the day they all leave her. She doesn't hold back her tears, even though her sister chews her lip and averts her eyes, even though it makes her little brother cry harder, even though her mate says he can't bear it and begs her not to.

"It's all right," her wise brother mutters. They all look at him. "Not all tears are evil, and we will meet again."

The Wild Wolf goes east, to be with the people he's made his own, and to roam among unicorns.

The Winged Wolf flies south, to be the Summer King and help the Andals rebuild their broken kingdoms.

The Wandering Wolf sails west, to find whatever lies beyond the shores known to men.

The White Wolf travels north, to don his Crow's cloak and man the Wall.

The Red Wolf remains, and rules the North.  _There must always be a Stark in Winterfell._

 

 

The Wolf Queen wanders her empty halls, the ghosts of all who have left her her only company. She sees them all around her, in the long faces and dark hair and grey eyes of the people surrounding her. She hears them in the laughter and mischief of children.

She feels them in the fierce and brave souls of the North. She recognizes them in the women sitting together sewing and talking, in mothers tenderly caring for their children. She has to avert her eyes when she sees two lovers embracing.

She can feel the Young Wolf's hand on her shoulder when she sits on her throne and wishes she could be standing by his side as he presides petitions in the Great Hall. When she closes her eyes, she can see him and Theon smiling at each other.

She undergoes all of it with a calm impassive smile on her face, ignoring the cries of her heart until they make her stomach queasy.

The North is free, and so is she. Her people love her and she thinks she rules them well, but she's still alone. In her darkest moments, she wonders whether she would sacrifice all of it only to get them back.

Moons go by and her moonblood doesn't come. Hope blooms in her chest, and she can finally feel the warmth of the sun on her skin.

The birthing bed is hard on her, the loneliness making it almost worse than the pain. She cries for her mother, but the Wildling midwife called Yglin speaks to her sternly and talks her through it.

After many grueling hours, she has a daughter with a head full of dark curls and impossibly blue eyes, her mother's eyes, Robb's eyes, but Sansa can tell by her powerful cries that she's a real wolf. 

 

 

Her daughter makes everything better. Even her loneliness isn't as torturous as it was before. Some of the Northern lords bristle at their Queen having a child out of wedlock, but the smallfolk say she is a skinchanger who roams the woods at night and mates with wolves. She proclaims that her child was fathered by a wolf and that her name will be Alysanne Stark. 

 

 

She's visiting Karhold when she hears a whisper in the rustling leaves of the castle's weirwood.  _Winter is coming._  A sennight later, a white raven arrives. She'll have to go back to Winterfell, to start preparing for Winter.

 

 

Once returned home, she walks under the fading trees of the Godswood, waiting for her family to come home, whenever she's not with Aly or overseeing the preparations for Winter.

When it starts to snow, she lies down on a bed of leaves under the Heart Tree. She can feel the snowflakes on her cheeks, taste them on her lips, until they become the memory of a lover's kiss. 

He's the first to return to her and her name is the first word on his lips. "Sansa," he whispers. 

Slowly, she sits up, pushing herself to her feet, not yet allowing herself to believe he's not a dream.

It is him, he is really there. They move together and fall into each other's arms. "Jon," she chokes out. "Jon, Jon, Jon," she sighs a thousand times as she holds him close.

It is so sweet to see him, feel him, smell him, to hear his voice again and kiss him, touch him. Their embrace could last a lifetime, and still it wouldn't be long enough.

He nuzzles her temple, and his lips travel down until they ghost over her bare neck. "Sansa," he groans as he brushes the fingers of his burnt hand over her cheek, fisting them into her hair.

"Please," she begs him, before capturing his lips in a deeper kiss.

They make love under the Heart Tree, and it's quick, messy and filled with an urgency they've never known before. 

Afterwards he promises her he'll take his time to worship her later that night.

"Perhaps I can't wait that long," she teases him, swinging a leg over his thighs to straddle him.  _Gods,_ she's missed him so much, and she wants him again.

Later she's lying cradled in his arms, her head pillowed on his chest and she wishes they could stay there forever. Eventually she rises reluctantly, holding out a hand for him. "Come, I have much to tell you."

 

 

A hundred emotions pass over his face when she introduces him to his daughter, but she doesn't miss the hurt flickering in his eyes.

"I didn't wish to tell you in a letter," she murmurs. "And I hoped that perhaps, I could spare you some of the pain of not being here."

He nods, blinking away his tears. "What's her name?"

"Alysanne."

"Snow?" he asks, meeting her eyes.

She lifts her chin. "Stark."

 

 

One by one, the rest of the wolf pack find their way back home. Her sister is the last to return, about two moons later, but she's made it in time for Aly's second nameday. She'd only been miles away from Winterfell for a sennight, but the snow storms had delayed her.

When they put their daughter to bed that night, the Wolf Queen takes her lover's hand. "Winter is here."

He offers her his brightest smile in response.

She can't hate herself for wishing it will be a long one. 

 

 

Winter lasts two years, both too long and too short.

 

 

The coming of Spring will always be bittersweet to her. The Winters are cruel, and the North and its people need a reprieve from it. They deserve to sing and dance and laugh in the sun. They can't go on without the promise of Summer's bounty. But to her, it's a promise of sorrow.

Sometimes she wonders if the pain will ever not sting quite as sharply, but she knows she must endure.

Winter will come again, and so will the wolves. They'll return to her with the Autumn storms. And they won't leave until Spring is in full bloom.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
